The Mysterious Portrait, by Nikolai Gogol

Part I

Nowhere did so many people pause as before the little picture-shop in the Shtchukinui Dvor. This little shop contained,
indeed, the most varied collection of curiosities. The pictures were chiefly oil-paintings covered with dark varnish, in
frames of dingy yellow. Winter scenes with white trees; very red sunsets, like raging conflagrations, a Flemish boor, more
like a turkey-cock in cuffs than a human being, were the prevailing subjects. To these must be added a few engravings, such
as a portrait of Khozreff-Mirza in a sheepskin cap, and some generals with three-cornered hats and hooked noses. Moreover,
the doors of such shops are usually festooned with bundles of those publications, printed on large sheets of bark, and then
coloured by hand, which bear witness to the native talent of the Russian.

On one was the Tzarevna Miliktrisa Kirbitievna; on another the city of Jerusalem. There are usually but few purchasers of
these productions, but gazers are many. Some truant lackey probably yawns in front of them, holding in his hand the dishes
containing dinner from the cook-shop for his master, who will not get his soup very hot. Before them, too, will most likely
be standing a soldier wrapped in his cloak, a dealer from the old-clothes mart, with a couple of penknives for sale, and a
huckstress, with a basketful of shoes. Each expresses admiration in his own way. The muzhiks generally touch them with their
fingers; the dealers gaze seriously at them; serving boys and apprentices laugh, and tease each other with the coloured
caricatures; old lackeys in frieze cloaks look at them merely for the sake of yawning away their time somewhere; and the
hucksters, young Russian women, halt by instinct to hear what people are gossiping about, and to see what they are looking
at.

At the time our story opens, the young painter, Tchartkoff, paused involuntarily as he passed the shop. His old cloak and
plain attire showed him to be a man who was devoted to his art with self-denying zeal, and who had no time to trouble
himself about his clothes. He halted in front of the little shop, and at first enjoyed an inward laugh over the
monstrosities in the shape of pictures.

At length he sank unconsciously into a reverie, and began to ponder as to what sort of people wanted these productions?
It did not seem remarkable to him that the Russian populace should gaze with rapture upon “Eruslanoff Lazarevitch,” on “The
Glutton” and “The Carouser,” on “Thoma and Erema.” The delineations of these subjects were easily intelligible to the
masses. But where were there purchases for those streaky, dirty oil-paintings? Who needed those Flemish boors, those red and
blue landscapes, which put forth some claims to a higher stage of art, but which really expressed the depths of its
degradation? They did not appear the works of a self-taught child. In that case, in spite of the caricature of drawing, a
sharp distinction would have manifested itself. But here were visible only simple dullness, steady-going incapacity, which
stood, through self-will, in the ranks of art, while its true place was among the lowest trades. The same colours, the same
manner, the same practised hand, belonging rather to a manufacturing automaton than to a man!

He stood before the dirty pictures for some time, his thoughts at length wandering to other matters. Meanwhile the
proprietor of the shop, a little grey man, in a frieze cloak, with a beard which had not been shaved since Sunday, had been
urging him to buy for some time, naming prices, without even knowing what pleased him or what he wanted. “Here, I’ll take a
silver piece for these peasants and this little landscape. What painting! it fairly dazzles one; only just received from the
factory; the varnish isn’t dry yet. Or here is a winter scene — take the winter scene; fifteen rubles; the frame alone is
worth it. What a winter scene!” Here the merchant gave a slight fillip to the canvas, as if to demonstrate all the merits of
the winter scene. “Pray have them put up and sent to your house. Where do you live? Here, boy, give me some string!”

“Hold, not so fast!” said the painter, coming to himself, and perceiving that the brisk dealer was beginning in earnest
to pack some pictures up. He was rather ashamed not to take anything after standing so long in front of the shop; so saying,
“Here, stop! I will see if there is anything I want here!” he stooped and began to pick up from the floor, where they were
thrown in a heap, some worn, dusty old paintings. There were old family portraits, whose descendants, probably could not be
found on earth; with torn canvas and frames minus their gilding; in short, trash. But the painter began his search, thinking
to himself, “Perhaps I may come across something.” He had heard stories about pictures of the great masters having been
found among the rubbish in cheap print-sellers’ shops.

The dealer, perceiving what he was about, ceased his importunities, and took up his post again at the door, hailing the
passers-by with, “Hither, friends, here are pictures; step in, step in; just received from the makers!” He shouted his fill,
and generally in vain, had a long talk with a rag-merchant, standing opposite, at the door of his shop; and finally,
recollecting that he had a customer in his shop, turned his back on the public and went inside. “Well, friend, have you
chosen anything?” said he. But the painter had already been standing motionless for some time before a portrait in a large
and originally magnificent frame, upon which, however, hardly a trace of gilding now remained.

It represented an old man, with a thin, bronzed face and high cheek-bones; the features seemingly depicted in a moment of
convulsive agitation. He wore a flowing Asiatic costume. Dusty and defaced as the portrait was, Tchartkoff saw, when he had
succeeded in removing the dirt from the face, traces of the work of a great artist. The portrait appeared to be unfinished,
but the power of the handling was striking. The eyes were the most remarkable picture of all: it seemed as though the full
power of the artist’s brush had been lavished upon them. They fairly gazed out of the portrait, destroying its harmony with
their strange liveliness. When he carried the portrait to the door, the eyes gleamed even more penetratingly. They produced
nearly the same impression on the public. A woman standing behind him exclaimed, “He is looking, he is looking!” and jumped
back. Tchartkoff experienced an unpleasant feeling, inexplicable even to himself, and placed the portrait on the floor.

“Well, will you take the portrait?” said the dealer.

“How much is it?” said the painter.

“Why chaffer over it? give me seventy-five kopeks.”

“No.”

“Well, how much will you give?”

“Twenty kopeks,” said the painter, preparing to go.

“What a price! Why, you couldn’t buy the frame for that! Perhaps you will decide to purchase to-morrow. Sir, sir, turn
back! Add ten kopeks. Take it, take it! give me twenty kopeks. To tell the truth, you are my only customer to-day, and
that’s the only reason.”

Thus Tchartkoff quite unexpectedly became the purchaser of the old portrait, and at the same time reflected, “Why have I
bought it? What is it to me?” But there was nothing to be done. He pulled a twenty-kopek piece from his pocket, gave it to
the merchant, took the portrait under his arm, and carried it home. On the way thither, he remembered that the twenty-kopek
piece he had given for it was his last. His thoughts at once became gloomy. Vexation and careless indifference took
possession of him at one and the same moment. The red light of sunset still lingered in one half the sky; the houses facing
that way still gleamed with its warm light; and meanwhile the cold blue light of the moon grew brighter. Light,
half-transparent shadows fell in bands upon the ground. The painter began by degrees to glance up at the sky, flushed with a
transparent light; and at the same moment from his mouth fell the words, “What a delicate tone! What a nuisance! Deuce take
it!” Re-adjusting the portrait, which kept slipping from under his arm, he quickened his pace.

Weary and bathed in perspiration, he dragged himself to Vasilievsky Ostroff. With difficulty and much panting he made his
way up the stairs flooded with soap-suds, and adorned with the tracks of dogs and cats. To his knock there was no answer:
there was no one at home. He leaned against the window, and disposed himself to wait patiently, until at last there
resounded behind him the footsteps of a boy in a blue blouse, his servant, model, and colour-grinder. This boy was called
Nikita, and spent all his time in the streets when his master was not at home. Nikita tried for a long time to get the key
into the lock, which was quite invisible, by reason of the darkness.

Finally the door was opened. Tchartkoff entered his ante-room, which was intolerably cold, as painters’ rooms always are,
which fact, however, they do not notice. Without giving Nikita his coat, he went on into his studio, a large room, but low,
fitted up with all sorts of artistic rubbish — plaster hands, canvases, sketches begun and discarded, and draperies thrown
over chairs. Feeling very tired, he took off his cloak, placed the portrait abstractedly between two small canvasses, and
threw himself on the narrow divan. Having stretched himself out, he finally called for a light.

“There are no candles,” said Nikita.

“What, none?”

“And there were none last night,” said Nikita. The artist recollected that, in fact, there had been no candles the
previous evening, and became silent. He let Nikita take his coat off, and put on his old worn dressing-gown.

“There has been a gentleman here,” said Nikita.

“Yes, he came for money, I know,” said the painter, waving his hand.

“He was not alone,” said Nikita.

“Who else was with him?”

“I don’t know, some police officer or other.”

“But why a police officer?”

“I don’t know why, but he says because your rent is not paid.”

“Well, what will come of it?”

“I don’t know what will come of it: he said, ‘If he won’t pay, why, let him leave the rooms.’ They are both coming again
to-morrow.”

“Let them come,” said Tchartkoff, with indifference; and a gloomy mood took full possession of him.

Young Tchartkoff was an artist of talent, which promised great things: his work gave evidence of observation, thought,
and a strong inclination to approach nearer to nature.

“Look here, my friend,” his professor said to him more than once, “you have talent; it will be a shame if you waste it:
but you are impatient; you have but to be attracted by anything, to fall in love with it, you become engrossed with it, and
all else goes for nothing, and you won’t even look at it. See to it that you do not become a fashionable artist. At present
your colouring begins to assert itself too loudly; and your drawing is at times quite weak; you are already striving after
the fashionable style, because it strikes the eye at once. Have a care! society already begins to have its attraction for
you: I have seen you with a shiny hat, a foppish neckerchief. . . . It is seductive to paint fashionable little pictures and
portraits for money; but talent is ruined, not developed, by that means. Be patient; think out every piece of work, discard
your foppishness; let others amass money, your own will not fail you.”

The professor was partly right. Our artist sometimes wanted to enjoy himself, to play the fop, in short, to give vent to
his youthful impulses in some way or other; but he could control himself withal. At times he would forget everything, when
he had once taken his brush in his hand, and could not tear himself from it except as from a delightful dream. His taste
perceptibly developed. He did not as yet understand all the depths of Raphael, but he was attracted by Guido’s broad and
rapid handling, he paused before Titian’s portraits, he delighted in the Flemish masters. The dark veil enshrouding the
ancient pictures had not yet wholly passed away from before them; but he already saw something in them, though in private he
did not agree with the professor that the secrets of the old masters are irremediably lost to us. It seemed to him that the
nineteenth century had improved upon them considerably, that the delineation of nature was more clear, more vivid, more
close. It sometimes vexed him when he saw how a strange artist, French or German, sometimes not even a painter by
profession, but only a skilful dauber, produced, by the celerity of his brush and the vividness of his colouring, a
universal commotion, and amassed in a twinkling a funded capital. This did not occur to him when fully occupied with his own
work, for then he forgot food and drink and all the world. But when dire want arrived, when he had no money wherewith to buy
brushes and colours, when his implacable landlord came ten times a day to demand the rent for his rooms, then did the luck
of the wealthy artists recur to his hungry imagination; then did the thought which so often traverses Russian minds, to give
up altogether, and go down hill, utterly to the bad, traverse his. And now he was almost in this frame of mind.

“Yes, it is all very well, to be patient, be patient!” he exclaimed, with vexation; “but there is an end to patience at
last. Be patient! but what money have I to buy a dinner with to-morrow? No one will lend me any. If I did bring myself to
sell all my pictures and sketches, they would not give me twenty kopeks for the whole of them. They are useful; I feel that
not one of them has been undertaken in vain; I have learned something from each one. Yes, but of what use is it? Studies,
sketches, all will be studies, trial-sketches to the end. And who will buy, not even knowing me by name? Who wants drawings
from the antique, or the life class, or my unfinished love of a Psyche, or the interior of my room, or the portrait of
Nikita, though it is better, to tell the truth, than the portraits by any of the fashionable artists? Why do I worry, and
toil like a learner over the alphabet, when I might shine as brightly as the rest, and have money, too, like them?”

Thus speaking, the artist suddenly shuddered, and turned pale. A convulsively distorted face gazed at him, peeping forth
from the surrounding canvas; two terrible eyes were fixed straight upon him; on the mouth was written a menacing command of
silence. Alarmed, he tried to scream and summon Nikita, who already was snoring in the ante-room; but he suddenly paused and
laughed. The sensation of fear died away in a moment; it was the portrait he had bought, and which he had quite forgotten.
The light of the moon illuminating the chamber had fallen upon it, and lent it a strange likeness to life.

He began to examine it. He moistened a sponge with water, passed it over the picture several times, washed off nearly all
the accumulated and incrusted dust and dirt, hung it on the wall before him, wondering yet more at the remarkable
workmanship. The whole face had gained new life, and the eyes gazed at him so that he shuddered; and, springing back, he
exclaimed in a voice of surprise: “It looks with human eyes!” Then suddenly there occurred to him a story he had heard long
before from his professor, of a certain portrait by the renowned Leonardo da Vinci, upon which the great master laboured
several years, and still regarded as incomplete, but which, according to Vasari, was nevertheless deemed by all the most
complete and finished product of his art. The most finished thing about it was the eyes, which amazed his contemporaries;
the very smallest, barely visible veins in them being reproduced on the canvas.

But in the portrait now before him there was something singular. It was no longer art; it even destroyed the harmony of
the portrait; they were living, human eyes! It seemed as though they had been cut from a living man and inserted. Here was
none of that high enjoyment which takes possession of the soul at the sight of an artist’s production, no matter how
terrible the subject he may have chosen.

Again he approached the portrait, in order to observe those wondrous eyes, and perceived, with terror, that they were
gazing at him. This was no copy from Nature; it was life, the strange life which might have lighted up the face of a dead
man, risen from the grave. Whether it was the effect of the moonlight, which brought with it fantastic thoughts, and
transformed things into strange likenesses, opposed to those of matter-of-fact day, or from some other cause, but it
suddenly became terrible to him, he knew not why, to sit alone in the room. He draw back from the portrait, turned aside,
and tried not to look at it; but his eye involuntarily, of its own accord, kept glancing sideways towards it. Finally, he
became afraid to walk about the room. It seemed as though some one were on the point of stepping up behind him; and every
time he turned, he glanced timidly back. He had never been a coward; but his imagination and nerves were sensitive, and that
evening he could not explain his involuntary fear. He seated himself in one corner, but even then it seemed to him that some
one was peeping over his shoulder into his face. Even Nikita’s snores, resounding from the ante-room, did not chase away his
fear. At length he rose from the seat, without raising his eyes, went behind a screen, and lay down on his bed. Through the
cracks of the screen he saw his room lit up by the moon, and the portrait hanging stiffly on the wall. The eyes were fixed
upon him in a yet more terrible and significant manner, and it seemed as if they would not look at anything but himself.
Overpowered with a feeling of oppression, he decided to rise from his bed, seized a sheet, and, approaching the portrait,
covered it up completely.

Having done this, he lay done more at ease on his bed, and began to meditate upon the poverty and pitiful lot of the
artist, and the thorny path lying before him in the world. But meanwhile his eye glanced involuntarily through the joint of
the screen at the portrait muffled in the sheet. The light of the moon heightened the whiteness of the sheet, and it seemed
to him as though those terrible eyes shone through the cloth. With terror he fixed his eyes more steadfastly on the spot, as
if wishing to convince himself that it was all nonsense. But at length he saw — saw clearly; there was no longer a sheet —
the portrait was quite uncovered, and was gazing beyond everything around it, straight at him; gazing as it seemed fairly
into his heart. His heart grew cold. He watched anxiously; the old man moved, and suddenly, supporting himself on the frame
with both arms, raised himself by his hands, and, putting forth both feet, leapt out of the frame. Through the crack of the
screen, the empty frame alone was now visible. Footsteps resounded through the room, and approached nearer and nearer to the
screen. The poor artist’s heart began beating fast. He expected every moment, his breath failing for fear, that the old man
would look round the screen at him. And lo! he did look from behind the screen, with the very same bronzed face, and with
his big eyes roving about.

Tchartkoff tried to scream, and felt that his voice was gone; he tried to move; his limbs refused their office. With open
mouth, and failing breath, he gazed at the tall phantom, draped in some kind of a flowing Asiatic robe, and waited for what
it would do. The old man sat down almost on his very feet, and then pulled out something from among the folds of his wide
garment. It was a purse. The old man untied it, took it by the end, and shook it. Heavy rolls of coin fell out with a dull
thud upon the floor. Each was wrapped in blue paper, and on each was marked, “1000 ducats.” The old man protruded his long,
bony hand from his wide sleeves, and began to undo the rolls. The gold glittered. Great as was the artist’s unreasoning
fear, he concentrated all his attention upon the gold, gazing motionless, as it made its appearance in the bony hands,
gleamed, rang lightly or dully, and was wrapped up again. Then he perceived one packet which had rolled farther than the
rest, to the very leg of his bedstead, near his pillow. He grasped it almost convulsively, and glanced in fear at the old
man to see whether he noticed it.

But the old man appeared very much occupied: he collected all his rolls, replaced them in the purse, and went outside the
screen without looking at him. Tchartkoff’s heart beat wildly as he heard the rustle of the retreating footsteps sounding
through the room. He clasped the roll of coin more closely in his hand, quivering in every limb. Suddenly he heard the
footsteps approaching the screen again. Apparently the old man had recollected that one roll was missing. Lo! again he
looked round the screen at him. The artist in despair grasped the roll with all his strength, tried with all his power to
make a movement, shrieked — and awoke.

He was bathed in a cold perspiration; his heart beat as hard as it was possible for it to beat; his chest was oppressed,
as though his last breath was about to issue from it. “Was it a dream?” he said, seizing his head with both hands. But the
terrible reality of the apparition did not resemble a dream. As he woke, he saw the old man step into the frame: the skirts
of the flowing garment even fluttered, and his hand felt plainly that a moment before it had held something heavy. The
moonlight lit up the room, bringing out from the dark corners here a canvas, there the model of a hand: a drapery thrown
over a chair; trousers and dirty boots. Then he perceived that he was not lying in his bed, but standing upright in front of
the portrait. How he had come there, he could not in the least comprehend. Still more surprised was he to find the portrait
uncovered, and with actually no sheet over it. Motionless with terror, he gazed at it, and perceived that the living, human
eyes were fastened upon him. A cold perspiration broke out upon his forehead. He wanted to move away, but felt that his feet
had in some way become rooted to the earth. And he felt that this was not a dream. The old man’s features moved, and his
lips began to project towards him, as though he wanted to suck him in. With a yell of despair he jumped back — and
awoke.

“Was it a dream?” With his heart throbbing to bursting, he felt about him with both hands. Yes, he was lying in bed, and
in precisely the position in which he had fallen asleep. Before him stood the screen. The moonlight flooded the room.
Through the crack of the screen, the portrait was visible, covered with the sheet, as it should be, just as he had covered
it. And so that, too, was a dream? But his clenched fist still felt as though something had been held in it. The throbbing
of his heart was violent, almost terrible; the weight upon his breast intolerable. He fixed his eyes upon the crack, and
stared steadfastly at the sheet. And lo! he saw plainly the sheet begin to open, as though hands were pushing from
underneath, and trying to throw it off. “Lord God, what is it!” he shrieked, crossing himself in despair — and awoke.

And was this, too, a dream? He sprang from his bed, half-mad, and could not comprehend what had happened to him. Was it
the oppression of a nightmare, the raving of fever, or an actual apparition? Striving to calm, as far as possible, his
mental tumult, and stay the wildly rushing blood, which beat with straining pulses in every vein, he went to the window and
opened it. The cool breeze revived him. The moonlight lay on the roofs and the white walls of the houses, though small
clouds passed frequently across the sky. All was still: from time to time there struck the ear the distant rumble of a
carriage. He put his head out of the window, and gazed for some time. Already the signs of approaching dawn were spreading
over the sky. At last he felt drowsy, shut to the window, stepped back, lay down in bed, and quickly fell, like one
exhausted, into a deep sleep.

He awoke late, and with the disagreeable feeling of a man who has been half-suffocated with coal-gas: his head ached
painfully. The room was dim: an unpleasant moisture pervaded the air, and penetrated the cracks of his windows. Dissatisfied
and depressed as a wet cock, he seated himself on his dilapidated divan, not knowing what to do, what to set about, and at
length remembered the whole of his dream. As he recalled it, the dream presented itself to his mind as so oppressively real
that he even began to wonder whether it were a dream, whether there were not something more here, whether it were not really
an apparition. Removing the sheet, he looked at the terrible portrait by the light of day. The eyes were really striking in
their liveliness, but he found nothing particularly terrible about them, though an indescribably unpleasant feeling lingered
in his mind. Nevertheless, he could not quite convince himself that it was a dream. It struck him that there must have been
some terrible fragment of reality in the vision. It seemed as though there were something in the old man’s very glance and
expression which said that he had been with him that night: his hand still felt the weight which had so recently lain in it
as if some one had but just snatched it from him. It seemed to him that, if he had only grasped the roll more firmly, it
would have remained in his hand, even after his awakening.

“My God, if I only had a portion of that money!” he said, breathing heavily; and in his fancy, all the rolls of coin,
with their fascinating inscription, “1000 ducats,” began to pour out of the purse. The rolls opened, the gold glittered, and
was wrapped up again; and he sat motionless, with his eyes fixed on the empty air, as if he were incapable of tearing
himself from such a sight, like a child who sits before a plate of sweets, and beholds, with watering mouth, other people
devouring them.

At last there came a knock on the door, which recalled him unpleasantly to himself. The landlord entered with the
constable of the district, whose presence is even more disagreeable to poor people than is the presence of a beggar to the
rich. The landlord of the little house in which Tchartkoff lived resembled the other individuals who own houses anywhere in
the Vasilievsky Ostroff, on the St. Petersburg side, or in the distant regions of Kolomna — individuals whose character is
as difficult to define as the colour of a threadbare surtout. In his youth he had been a captain and a braggart, a master in
the art of flogging, skilful, foppish, and stupid; but in his old age he combined all these various qualities into a kind of
dim indefiniteness. He was a widower, already on the retired list, no longer boasted, nor was dandified, nor quarrelled, but
only cared to drink tea and talk all sorts of nonsense over it. He walked about his room, and arranged the ends of the
tallow candles; called punctually at the end of each month upon his lodgers for money; went out into the street, with the
key in his hand, to look at the roof of his house, and sometimes chased the porter out of his den, where he had hidden
himself to sleep. In short, he was a man on the retired list, who, after the turmoils and wildness of his life, had only his
old-fashioned habits left.

“Please to see for yourself, Varukh Kusmitch,” said the landlord, turning to the officer, and throwing out his hands,
“this man does not pay his rent, he does not pay.”

“How can I when I have no money? Wait, and I will pay.”

“I can’t wait, my good fellow,” said the landlord angrily, making a gesture with the key which he held in his hand.
“Lieutenant-Colonel Potogonkin has lived with me seven years, seven years already; Anna Petrovna Buchmisteroff rents the
coach-house and stable, with the exception of two stalls, and has three household servants: that is the kind of lodgers I
have. I say to you frankly, that this is not an establishment where people do not pay their rent. Pay your money at once,
please, or else clear out.”

“Yes, if you rented the rooms, please to pay,” said the constable, with a slight shake of the head, as he laid his finger
on one of the buttons of his uniform.

“Well, what am I to pay with? that’s the question. I haven’t a groschen just at present.”

“In that case, satisfy the claims of Ivan Ivanovitch with the fruits of your profession,” said the officer: “perhaps he
will consent to take pictures.”

“No, thank you, my good fellow, no pictures. Pictures of holy subjects, such as one could hang upon the walls, would be
well enough; or some general with a star, or Prince Kutusoff’s portrait. But this fellow has painted that muzhik, that
muzhik in his blouse, his servant who grinds his colours! The idea of painting his portrait, the hog! I’ll thrash him well:
he took all the nails out of my bolts, the scoundrel! Just see what subjects! Here he has drawn his room. It would have been
well enough had he taken a clean, well-furnished room; but he has gone and drawn this one, with all the dirt and rubbish he
has collected. Just see how he has defaced my room! Look for yourself. Yes, and my lodgers have been with me seven years,
the lieutenant-colonel, Anna Petrovna Buchmisteroff. No, I tell you, there is no worse lodger than a painter: he lives like
a pig — God have mercy!”

The poor artist had to listen patiently to all this. Meanwhile the officer had occupied himself with examining the
pictures and studies, and showed that his mind was more advanced than the landlord’s, and that he was not insensible to
artistic impressions.

“Heh!” said he, tapping one canvas, on which was depicted a naked woman, “this subject is — lively. But why so much black
under her nose? did she take snuff?”

“Shadow,” answered Tchartkoff gruffly, without looking at him.

“But it might have been put in some other place: it is too conspicuous under the nose,” observed the officer. “And whose
likeness is this?” he continued, approaching the old man’s portrait. “It is too terrible. Was he really so dreadful? Ah!
why, he actually looks at one! What a thunder-cloud! From whom did you paint it?”

“Ah! it is from a —” said Tchartkoff, but did not finish his sentence: he heard a crack. It seems that the officer had
pressed too hard on the frame of the portrait, thanks to the weight of his constable’s hands. The small boards at the side
caved in, one fell on the floor, and with it fell, with a heavy crash, a roll of blue paper. The inscription caught
Tchartkoff’s eye —“1000 ducats.” Like a madman, he sprang to pick it up, grasped the roll, and gripped it convulsively in
his hand, which sank with the weight.

“Wasn’t there a sound of money?” inquired the officer, hearing the noise of something falling on the floor, and not
catching sight of it, owing to the rapidity with which Tchartkoff had hastened to pick it up.

“What business is it of yours what is in my room?”

“It’s my business because you ought to pay your rent to the landlord at once; because you have money, and won’t pay,
that’s why it’s my business.”

“Well, I will pay him to-day.”

“Well, and why wouldn’t you pay before, instead of giving trouble to your landlord, and bothering the police to
boot?”

“Because I did not want to touch this money. I will pay him in full this evening, and leave the rooms to-morrow. I will
not stay with such a landlord.”

“Well, Ivan Ivanovitch, he will pay you,” said the constable, turning to the landlord. “But in case you are not satisfied
in every respect this evening, then you must excuse me, Mr. Painter.” So saying, he put on his three-cornered hat, and went
into the ante-room, followed by the landlord hanging his head, and apparently engaged in meditation.

“Thank God, Satan has carried them off!” said Tchartkoff, as he heard the outer door of the ante-room close. He looked
out into the ante-room, sent Nikita off on some errand, in order to be quite alone, fastened the door behind him, and,
returning to his room, began with wildly beating heart to undo the roll.

In it were ducats, all new, and bright as fire. Almost beside himself, he sat down beside the pile of gold, still asking
himself, “Is not this all a dream?” There were just a thousand in the roll, the exterior of which was precisely like what he
had seen in his dream. He turned them over, and looked at them for some minutes. His imagination recalled up all the tales
he had heard of hidden hoards, cabinets with secret drawers, left by ancestors for their spendthrift descendants, with firm
belief in the extravagance of their life. He pondered this: “Did not some grandfather, in the present instance, leave a gift
for his grandchild, shut up in the frame of a family portrait?” Filled with romantic fancies, he began to think whether this
had not some secret connection with his fate? whether the existence of the portrait was not bound up with his own, and
whether his acquisition of it was not due to a kind of predestination?

He began to examine the frame with curiosity. On one side a cavity was hollowed out, but concealed so skilfully and
neatly by a little board, that, if the massive hand of the constable had not effected a breach, the ducats might have
remained hidden to the end of time. On examining the portrait, he marvelled again at the exquisite workmanship, the
extraordinary treatment of the eyes. They no longer appeared terrible to him; but, nevertheless, each time he looked at them
a disagreeable feeling involuntarily lingered in his mind.

“No,” he said to himself, “no matter whose grandfather you were, I’ll put a glass over you, and get you a gilt frame.”
Then he laid his hand on the golden pile before him, and his heart beat faster at the touch. “What shall I do with them?” he
said, fixing his eyes on them. “Now I am independent for at least three years: I can shut myself up in my room and work. I
have money for colours now; for food and lodging — no one will annoy and disturb me now. I will buy myself a first-class lay
figure, I will order a plaster torso, and some model feet, I will have a Venus. I will buy engravings of the best pictures.
And if I work three years to satisfy myself, without haste or with the idea of selling, I shall surpass all, and may become
a distinguished artist.”

Thus he spoke in solitude, with his good judgment prompting him; but louder and more distinct sounded another voice
within him. As he glanced once more at the gold, it was not thus that his twenty-two years and fiery youth reasoned. Now
everything was within his power on which he had hitherto gazed with envious eyes, had viewed from afar with longing. How his
heart beat when he thought of it! To wear a fashionable coat, to feast after long abstinence, to hire handsome apartments,
to go at once to the theatre, to the confectioner’s, to . . . other places; and seizing his money, he was in the street in a
moment.

First of all he went to the tailor, was clothed anew from head to foot, and began to look at himself like a child. He
purchased perfumes and pomades; hired the first elegant suite of apartments with mirrors and plateglass windows which he
came across in the Nevsky Prospect, without haggling about the price; bought, on the impulse of the moment, a costly
eye-glass; bought, also on the impulse, a number of neckties of every description, many more than he needed; had his hair
curled at the hairdresser’s; rode through the city twice without any object whatever; ate an immense quantity of sweetmeats
at the confectioner’s; and went to the French Restaurant, of which he had heard rumours as indistinct as though they had
concerned the Empire of China. There he dined, casting proud glances at the other visitors, and continually arranging his
curls in the glass. There he drank a bottle of champagne, which had been known to him hitherto only by hearsay. The wine
rather affected his head; and he emerged into the street, lively, pugnacious, and ready to raise the Devil, according to the
Russian expression. He strutted along the pavement, levelling his eye-glass at everybody. On the bridge he caught sight of
his former professor, and slipped past him neatly, as if he did not see him, so that the astounded professor stood
stock-still on the bridge for a long time, with a face suggestive of a note of interrogation.

All his goods and chattels, everything he owned, easels, canvas, pictures, were transported that same evening to his
elegant quarters. He arranged the best of them in conspicuous places, threw the worst into a corner, and promenaded up and
down the handsome rooms, glancing constantly in the mirrors. An unconquerable desire to take the bull by the horns, and show
himself to the world at once, had arisen in his mind. He already heard the shouts, “Tchartkoff! Tchartkoff! Tchartkoff
paints! What talent Tchartkoff has!” He paced the room in a state of rapture.

The next day he took ten ducats, and went to the editor of a popular journal asking his charitable assistance. He was
joyfully received by the journalist, who called him on the spot, “Most respected sir,” squeezed both his hands, and made
minute inquiries as to his name, birthplace, residence. The next day there appeared in the journal, below a notice of some
newly invented tallow candles, an article with the following heading:—

“TCHARTKOFF’S IMMENSE TALENT

“We hasten to delight the cultivated inhabitants of the capital with a discovery which we may call splendid in every
respect. All are agreed that there are among us many very handsome faces, but hitherto there has been no means of committing
them to canvas for transmission to posterity. This want has now been supplied: an artist has been found who unites in
himself all desirable qualities. The beauty can now feel assured that she will be depicted with all the grace of her charms,
airy, fascinating, butterfly-like, flitting among the flowers of spring. The stately father of a family can see himself
surrounded by his family. Merchant, warrior, citizen, statesman — hasten one and all, wherever you may be. The artist’s
magnificent establishment [Nevsky Prospect, such and such a number] is hung with portraits from his brush, worthy of Van
Dyck or Titian. We do not know which to admire most, their truth and likeness to the originals, or the wonderful brilliancy
and freshness of the colouring. Hail to you, artist! you have drawn a lucky number in the lottery. Long live Andrei
Petrovitch!” (The journalist evidently liked familiarity.) “Glorify yourself and us. We know how to prize you. Universal
popularity, and with it wealth, will be your meed, though some of our brother journalists may rise against you.”

The artist read this article with secret satisfaction; his face beamed. He was mentioned in print; it was a novelty to
him: he read the lines over several times. The comparison with Van Dyck and Titian flattered him extremely. The praise,
“Long live Andrei Petrovitch,” also pleased him greatly: to be spoken of by his Christian name and patronymic in print was
an honour hitherto totally unknown to him. He began to pace the chamber briskly, now he sat down in an armchair, now he
sprang up, and seated himself on the sofa, planning each moment how he would receive visitors, male and female; he went to
his canvas and made a rapid sweep of the brush, endeavouring to impart a graceful movement to his hand.

The next day, the bell at his door rang. He hastened to open it. A lady entered, accompanied by a girl of eighteen, her
daughter, and followed by a lackey in a furred livery-coat.

“You are the painter Tchartkoff?”

The artist bowed.

“A great deal is written about you: your portraits, it is said, are the height of perfection.” So saying, the lady raised
her glass to her eyes and glanced rapidly over the walls, upon which nothing was hanging. “But where are your
portraits?”

“They have been taken away” replied the artist, somewhat confusedly: “I have but just moved into these apartments; so
they are still on the road, they have not arrived.”

“You have been in Italy?” asked the lady, levelling her glass at him, as she found nothing else to point it at.

“No, I have not been there; but I wish to go, and I have deferred it for a while. Here is an arm-chair, madame: you are
fatigued?”

“Thank you: I have been sitting a long time in the carriage. Ah, at last I behold your work!” said the lady, running to
the opposite wall, and bringing her glass to bear upon his studies, sketches, views and portraits which were standing there
on the floor. “It is charming. Lise! Lise, come here. Rooms in the style of Teniers. Do you see? Disorder, disorder, a table
with a bust upon it, a hand, a palette; dust, see how the dust is painted! It is charming. And here on this canvas is a
woman washing her face. What a pretty face! Ah! a little muzhik! So you do not devote yourself exclusively to
portraits?”

“Oh! that is mere rubbish. I was trying experiments, studies.”

“Tell me your opinion of the portrait painters of the present day. Is it not true that there are none now like Titian?
There is not that strength of colour, that — that — What a pity that I cannot express myself in Russian.” The lady was fond
of paintings, and had gone through all the galleries in Italy with her eye-glass. “But Monsieur Nohl — ah, how well he
paints! what remarkable work! I think his faces have been more expression than Titian’s. You do not know Monsieur Nohl?”

“Who is Nohl?” inquired the artist.

“Monsieur Nohl. Ah, what talent! He painted her portrait when she was only twelve years old. You must certainly come to
see us. Lise, you shall show him your album. You know, we came expressly that you might begin her portrait immediately.”

“What? I am ready this very moment.” And in a trice he pulled forward an easel with a canvas already prepared, grasped
his palette, and fixed his eyes on the daughter’s pretty little face. If he had been acquainted with human nature, he might
have read in it the dawning of a childish passion for balls, the dawning of sorrow and misery at the length of time before
dinner and after dinner, the heavy traces of uninterested application to various arts, insisted upon by her mother for the
elevation of her mind. But the artist saw only the tender little face, a seductive subject for his brush, the body almost as
transparent as porcelain, the delicate white neck, and the aristocratically slender form. And he prepared beforehand to
triumph, to display the delicacy of his brush, which had hitherto had to deal only with the harsh features of coarse models,
and severe antiques and copies of classic masters. He already saw in fancy how this delicate little face would turn out.

“Do you know,” said the lady with a positively touching expression of countenance, “I should like her to be painted
simply attired, and seated among green shadows, like meadows, with a flock or a grove in the distance, so that it could not
be seen that she goes to balls or fashionable entertainments. Our balls, I must confess, murder the intellect, deaden all
remnants of feeling. Simplicity! would there were more simplicity!” Alas, it was stamped on the faces of mother and daughter
that they had so overdanced themselves at balls that they had become almost wax figures.

Tchartkoff set to work, posed his model, reflected a bit, fixed upon the idea, waved his brush in the air, settling the
points mentally, and then began and finished the sketching in within an hour. Satisfied with it, he began to paint. The task
fascinated him; he forgot everything, forgot the very existence of the aristocratic ladies, began even to display some
artistic tricks, uttering various odd sounds and humming to himself now and then as artists do when immersed heart and soul
in their work. Without the slightest ceremony, he made the sitter lift her head, which finally began to express utter
weariness.

“Enough for the first time,” said the lady.

“A little more,” said the artist, forgetting himself.

“No, it is time to stop. Lise, three o’clock!” said the lady, taking out a tiny watch which hung by a gold chain from her
girdle. “How late it is!”

“Only a minute,” said Tchartkoff innocently, with the pleading voice of a child.

But the lady appeared to be not at all inclined to yield to his artistic demands on this occasion; she promised, however,
to sit longer the next time.

“It is vexatious, all the same,” thought Tchartkoff to himself: “I had just got my hand in;” and he remembered no one had
interrupted him or stopped him when he was at work in his studio on Vasilievsky Ostroff. Nikita sat motionless in one place.
You might even paint him as long as you pleased; he even went to sleep in the attitude prescribed him. Feeling dissatisfied,
he laid his brush and palette on a chair, and paused in irritation before the picture.

The woman of the world’s compliments awoke him from his reverie. He flew to the door to show them out: on the stairs he
received an invitation to dine with them the following week, and returned with a cheerful face to his apartments. The
aristocratic lady had completely charmed him. Up to that time he had looked upon such beings as unapproachable, born solely
to ride in magnificent carriages, with liveried footmen and stylish coachmen, and to cast indifferent glances on the poor
man travelling on foot in a cheap cloak. And now, all of a sudden, one of these very beings had entered his room; he was
painting her portrait, was invited to dinner at an aristocratic house. An unusual feeling of pleasure took possession of
him: he was completely intoxicated, and rewarded himself with a splendid dinner, an evening at the theatre, and a drive
through the city in a carriage, without any necessity whatever.

But meanwhile his ordinary work did not fall in with his mood at all. He did nothing but wait for the moment when the
bell should ring. At last the aristocratic lady arrived with her pale daughter. He seated them, drew forward the canvas with
skill, and some efforts of fashionable airs, and began to paint. The sunny day and bright light aided him not a little: he
saw in his dainty sitter much which, caught and committed to canvas, would give great value to the portrait. He perceived
that he might accomplish something good if he could reproduce, with accuracy, all that nature then offered to his eyes. His
heart began to beat faster as he felt that he was expressing something which others had not even seen as yet. His work
engrossed him completely: he was wholly taken up with it, and again forgot the aristocratic origin of the sitter. With
heaving breast he saw the delicate features and the almost transparent body of the fair maiden grow beneath his hand. He had
caught every shade, the slight sallowness, the almost imperceptible blue tinge under the eyes — and was already preparing to
put in the tiny mole on the brow, when he suddenly heard the mother’s voice behind him.

“Ah! why do you paint that? it is not necessary: and you have made it here, in several places, rather yellow; and here,
quite so, like dark spots.”

The artist undertook to explain that the spots and yellow tinge would turn out well, that they brought out the delicate
and pleasing tones of the face. He was informed that they did not bring out tones, and would not turn out well at all. It
was explained to him that just to-day Lise did not feel quite well; that she never was sallow, and that her face was
distinguished for its fresh colouring.

Sadly he began to erase what his brush had put upon the canvas. Many a nearly imperceptible feature disappeared, and with
it vanished too a portion of the resemblance. He began indifferently to impart to the picture that commonplace colouring
which can be painted mechanically, and which lends to a face, even when taken from nature, the sort of cold ideality
observable on school programmes. But the lady was satisfied when the objectionable tone was quite banished. She merely
expressed surprise that the work lasted so long, and added that she had heard that he finished a portrait completely in two
sittings. The artist could not think of any answer to this. The ladies rose, and prepared to depart. He laid aside his
brush, escorted them to the door, and then stood disconsolate for a long while in one spot before the portrait.

He gazed stupidly at it; and meanwhile there floated before his mind’s eye those delicate features, those shades, and
airy tints which he had copied, and which his brush had annihilated. Engrossed with them, he put the portrait on one side
and hunted up a head of Psyche which he had some time before thrown on canvas in a sketchy manner. It was a pretty little
face, well painted, but entirely ideal, and having cold, regular features not lit up by life. For lack of occupation, he now
began to tone it up, imparting to it all he had taken note of in his aristocratic sitter. Those features, shadows, tints,
which he had noted, made their appearance here in the purified form in which they appear when the painter, after closely
observing nature, subordinates himself to her, and produces a creation equal to her own.

Psyche began to live: and the scarcely dawning thought began, little by little, to clothe itself in a visible form. The
type of face of the fashionable young lady was unconsciously transferred to Psyche, yet nevertheless she had an expression
of her own which gave the picture claims to be considered in truth an original creation. Tchartkoff gave himself up entirely
to his work. For several days he was engrossed by it alone, and the ladies surprised him at it on their arrival. He had not
time to remove the picture from the easel. Both ladies uttered a cry of amazement, and clasped their hands.

“Lise, Lise! Ah, how like! Superb, superb! What a happy thought, too, to drape her in a Greek costume! Ah, what a
surprise!”

The artist could not see his way to disabuse the ladies of their error. Shamefacedly, with drooping head, he murmured,
“This is Psyche.”

“In the character of Psyche? Charming!” said the mother, smiling, upon which the daughter smiled too. “Confess, Lise, it
pleases you to be painted in the character of Psyche better than any other way? What a sweet idea! But what treatment! It is
Correggio himself. I must say that, although I had read and heard about you, I did not know you had so much talent. You
positively must paint me too.” Evidently the lady wanted to be portrayed as some kind of Psyche too.

“What am I to do with them?” thought the artist. “If they will have it so, why, let Psyche pass for what they choose:”
and added aloud, “Pray sit a little: I will touch it up here and there.”

“Ah! I am afraid you will . . . it is such a capital likeness now!”

But the artist understood that the difficulty was with respect to the sallowness, and so he reassured them by saying that
he only wished to give more brilliancy and expression to the eyes. In truth, he was ashamed, and wanted to impart a little
more likeness to the original, lest any one should accuse him of actual barefaced flattery. And the features of the pale
young girl at length appeared more closely in Psyche’s countenance.

“Enough,” said the mother, beginning to fear that the likeness might become too decided. The artist was remunerated in
every way, with smiles, money, compliments, cordial pressures of the hand, invitations to dinner: in short, he received a
thousand flattering rewards.

The portrait created a furore in the city. The lady exhibited it to her friends, and all admired the skill with which the
artist had preserved the likeness, and at the same time conferred more beauty on the original. The last remark, of course,
was prompted by a slight tinge of envy. The artist was suddenly overwhelmed with work. It seemed as if the whole city wanted
to be painted by him. The door-bell rang incessantly. From one point of view, this might be considered advantageous, as
presenting to him endless practice in variety and number of faces. But, unfortunately, they were all people who were hard to
get along with, either busy, hurried people, or else belonging to the fashionable world, and consequently more occupied than
any one else, and therefore impatient to the last degree. In all quarters, the demand was merely that the likeness should be
good and quickly executed. The artist perceived that it was a simple impossibility to finish his work; that it was necessary
to exchange power of treatment for lightness and rapidity, to catch only the general expression, and not waste labour on
delicate details.

Moreover, nearly all of his sitters made stipulations on various points. The ladies required that mind and character
should be represented in their portraits; that all angles should be rounded, all unevenness smoothed away, and even removed
entirely if possible; in short, that their faces should be such as to cause every one to stare at them with admiration, if
not fall in love with them outright. When they sat to him, they sometimes assumed expressions which greatly amazed the
artist; one tried to express melancholy; another, meditation; a third wanted to make her mouth appear small on any terms,
and puckered it up to such an extent that it finally looked like a spot about as big as a pinhead. And in spite of all this,
they demanded of him good likenesses and unconstrained naturalness. The men were no better: one insisted on being painted
with an energetic, muscular turn to his head; another, with upturned, inspired eyes; a lieutenant of the guard demanded that
Mars should be visible in his eyes; an official in the civil service drew himself up to his full height in order to have his
uprightness expressed in his face, and that his hand might rest on a book bearing the words in plain characters, “He always
stood up for the right.”

At first such demands threw the artist into a cold perspiration. Finally he acquired the knack of it, and never troubled
himself at all about it. He understood at a word how each wanted himself portrayed. If a man wanted Mars in his face, he put
in Mars: he gave a Byronic turn and attitude to those who aimed at Byron. If the ladies wanted to be Corinne, Undine, or
Aspasia, he agreed with great readiness, and threw in a sufficient measure of good looks from his own imagination, which
does no harm, and for the sake of which an artist is even forgiven a lack of resemblance. He soon began to wonder himself at
the rapidity and dash of his brush. And of course those who sat to him were in ecstasies, and proclaimed him a genius.

Tchartkoff became a fashionable artist in every sense of the word. He began to dine out, to escort ladies to picture
galleries, to dress foppishly, and to assert audibly that an artist should belong to society, that he must uphold his
profession, that artists mostly dress like showmakers, do not know how to behave themselves, do not maintain the highest
tone, and are lacking in all polish. At home, in his studio, he carried cleanliness and spotlessness to the last extreme,
set up two superb footmen, took fashionable pupils, dressed several times a day, curled his hair, practised various manners
of receiving his callers, and busied himself in adorning his person in every conceivable way, in order to produce a pleasing
impression on the ladies. In short, it would soon have been impossible for any one to have recognised in him the modest
artist who had formerly toiled unknown in his miserable quarters in the Vasilievsky Ostroff.

He now expressed himself decidedly concerning artists and art; declared that too much credit had been given to the old
masters; that even Raphael did not always paint well, and that fame attached to many of his works simply by force of
tradition: that Michael Angelo was a braggart because he could boast only a knowledge of anatomy; that there was no grace
about him, and that real brilliancy and power of treatment and colouring were to be looked for in the present century. And
there, naturally, the question touched him personally. “I do not understand,” said he, “how others toil and work with
difficulty: a man who labours for months over a picture is a dauber, and no artist in my opinion; I don’t believe he has any
talent: genius works boldly, rapidly. Here is this portrait which I painted in two days, this head in one day, this in a few
hours, this in little more than an hour. No, I confess I do not recognise as art that which adds line to line; that is a
handicraft, not art.” In this manner did he lecture his visitors; and the visitors admired the strength and boldness of his
works, uttered exclamations on hearing how fast they had been produced, and said to each other, “This is talent, real
talent! see how he speaks, how his eyes gleam! There is something really extraordinary in his face!”

It flattered the artist to hear such reports about himself. When printed praise appeared in the papers, he rejoiced like
a child, although this praise was purchased with his money. He carried the printed slips about with him everywhere, and
showed them to friends and acquaintances as if by accident. His fame increased, his works and orders multiplied. Already the
same portraits over and over again wearied him, by the same attitudes and turns, which he had learned by heart. He painted
them now without any great interest in his work, brushing in some sort of a head, and giving them to his pupil’s to finish.
At first he had sought to devise a new attitude each time. Now this had grown wearisome to him. His brain was tired with
planning and thinking. It was out of his power; his fashionable life bore him far away from labour and thought. His work
grew cold and colourless; and he betook himself with indifference to the reproduction of monotonous, well-worn forms. The
eternally spick-and-span uniforms, and the so-to-speak buttoned-up faces of the government officials, soldiers, and
statesmen, did not offer a wide field for his brush: it forgot how to render superb draperies and powerful emotion and
passion. Of grouping, dramatic effect and its lofty connections, there was nothing. In face of him was only a uniform, a
corsage, a dress-coat, and before which the artist feels cold and all imagination vanishes. Even his own peculiar merits
were no longer visible in his works, yet they continued to enjoy renown; although genuine connoisseurs and artists merely
shrugged their shoulders when they saw his latest productions. But some who had known Tchartkoff in his earlier days could
not understand how the talent of which he had given such clear indications in the outset could so have vanished; and strove
in vain to divine by what means genius could be extinguished in a man just when he had attained to the full development of
his powers.

But the intoxicated artist did not hear these criticisms. He began to attain to the age of dignity, both in mind and
years: to grow stout, and increase visibly in flesh. He often read in the papers such phrases as, “Our most respected Andrei
Petrovitch; our worthy Andrei Petrovitch.” He began to receive offers of distinguished posts in the service, invitations to
examinations and committees. He began, as is usually the case in maturer years, to advocate Raphael and the old masters, not
because he had become thoroughly convinced of their transcendent merits, but in order to snub the younger artists. His life
was already approaching the period when everything which suggests impulse contracts within a man; when a powerful chord
appeals more feebly to the spirit; when the touch of beauty no longer converts virgin strength into fire and flame, but when
all the burnt-out sentiments become more vulnerable to the sound of gold, hearken more attentively to its seductive music,
and little by little permit themselves to be completely lulled to sleep by it. Fame can give no pleasure to him who has
stolen it, not won it; so all his feelings and impulses turned towards wealth. Gold was his passion, his ideal, his fear,
his delight, his aim. The bundles of bank-notes increased in his coffers; and, like all to whose lot falls this fearful
gift, he began to grow inaccessible to every sentiment except the love of gold. But something occurred which gave him a
powerful shock, and disturbed the whole tenor of his life.

One day he found upon his table a note, in which the Academy of Painting begged him, as a worthy member of its body, to
come and give his opinion upon a new work which had been sent from Italy by a Russian artist who was perfecting himself
there. The painter was one of his former comrades, who had been possessed with a passion for art from his earliest years,
had given himself up to it with his whole soul, estranged himself from his friends and relatives, and had hastened to that
wonderful Rome, at whose very name the artist’s heart beats wildly and hotly. There he buried himself in his work from which
he permitted nothing to entice him. He visited the galleries unweariedly, he stood for hours at a time before the works of
the great masters, seizing and studying their marvellous methods. He never finished anything without revising his
impressions several times before these great teachers, and reading in their works silent but eloquent counsels. He gave each
impartially his due, appropriating from all only that which was most beautiful, and finally became the pupil of the divine
Raphael alone, as a great poet, after reading many works, at last made Homer’s “Iliad” his only breviary, having discovered
that it contains all one wants, and that there is nothing which is not expressed in it in perfection. And so he brought away
from his school the grand conception of creation, the mighty beauty of thought, the high charm of that heavenly brush.

When Tchartkoff entered the room, he found a crowd of visitors already collected before the picture. The most profound
silence, such as rarely settles upon a throng of critics, reigned over all. He hastened to assume the significant expression
of a connoisseur, and approached the picture; but, O God! what did he behold!

Pure, faultless, beautiful as a bride, stood the picture before him. The critics regarded this new hitherto unknown work
with a feeling of involuntary wonder. All seemed united in it: the art of Raphael, reflected in the lofty grace of the
grouping; the art of Correggio, breathing from the finished perfection of the workmanship. But more striking than all else
was the evident creative power in the artist’s mind. The very minutest object in the picture revealed it; he had caught that
melting roundness of outline which is visible in nature only to the artist creator, and which comes out as angles with a
copyist. It was plainly visible how the artist, having imbibed it all from the external world, had first stored it in his
mind, and then drawn it thence, as from a spiritual source, into one harmonious, triumphant song. And it was evident, even
to the uninitiated, how vast a gulf there was fixed between creation and a mere copy from nature. Involuntary tears stood
ready to fall in the eyes of those who surrounded the picture. It seemed as though all joined in a silent hymn to the divine
work.

Motionless, with open mouth, Tchartkoff stood before the picture. At length, when by degrees the visitors and critics
began to murmur and comment upon the merits of the work, and turning to him, begged him to express an opinion, he came to
himself once more. He tried to assume an indifferent, everyday expression; strove to utter some such commonplace remark as;
“Yes, to tell the truth, it is impossible to deny the artist’s talent; there is something in it;” but the speech died upon
his lips, tears and sobs burst forth uncontrollably, and he rushed from the room like one beside himself.

In a moment he stood in his magnificent studio. All his being, all his life, had been aroused in one instant, as if youth
had returned to him, as if the dying sparks of his talent had blazed forth afresh. The bandage suddenly fell from his eyes.
Heavens! to think of having mercilessly wasted the best years of his youth, of having extinguished, trodden out perhaps,
that spark of fire which, cherished in his breast, might perhaps have been developed into magnificence and beauty, and have
extorted too, its meed of tears and admiration! It seemed as though those impulses which he had known in other days re-awoke
suddenly in his soul.

He seized a brush and approached his canvas. One thought possessed him wholly, one desire consumed him; he strove to
depict a fallen angel. This idea was most in harmony with his frame of mind. The perspiration started out upon his face with
his efforts; but, alas! his figures, attitudes, groups, thoughts, arranged themselves stiffly, disconnectedly. His hand and
his imagination had been too long confined to one groove; and the fruitless effort to escape from the bonds and fetters
which he had imposed upon himself, showed itself in irregularities and errors. He had despised the long, wearisome ladder to
knowledge, and the first fundamental law of the future great man, hard work. He gave vent to his vexation. He ordered all
his later productions to be taken out of his studio, all the fashionable, lifeless pictures, all the portraits of hussars,
ladies, and councillors of state.

He shut himself up alone in his room, would order no food, and devoted himself entirely to his work. He sat toiling like
a scholar. But how pitifully wretched was all which proceeded from his hand! He was stopped at every step by his ignorance
of the very first principles: simple ignorance of the mechanical part of his art chilled all inspiration and formed an
impassable barrier to his imagination. His brush returned involuntarily to hackneyed forms: hands folded themselves in a set
attitude; heads dared not make any unusual turn; the very garments turned out commonplace, and would not drape themselves to
any unaccustomed posture of the body. And he felt and saw this all himself.

“But had I really any talent?” he said at length: “did not I deceive myself?” Uttering these words, he turned to the
early works which he had painted so purely, so unselfishly, in former days, in his wretched cabin yonder in lonely
Vasilievsky Ostroff. He began attentively to examine them all; and all the misery of his former life came back to him.
“Yes,” he cried despairingly, “I had talent: the signs and traces of it are everywhere visible —”

He paused suddenly, and shivered all over. His eyes encountered other eyes fixed immovably upon him. It was that
remarkable portrait which he had bought in the Shtchukinui Dvor. All this time it had been covered up, concealed by other
pictures, and had utterly gone out of his mind. Now, as if by design, when all the fashionable portraits and paintings had
been removed from the studio, it looked forth, together with the productions of his early youth. As he recalled all the
strange events connected with it; as he remembered that this singular portrait had been, in a manner, the cause of his
errors; that the hoard of money which he had obtained in such peculiar fashion had given birth in his mind to all the wild
caprices which had destroyed his talent — madness was on the point of taking possession of him. At once he ordered the
hateful portrait to be removed.

But his mental excitement was not thereby diminished. His whole being was shaken to its foundation; and he suffered that
fearful torture which is sometimes exhibited when a feeble talent strives to display itself on a scale too great for it and
cannot do so. A horrible envy took possession of him — an envy which bordered on madness. The gall flew to his heart when he
beheld a work which bore the stamp of talent. He gnashed his teeth, and devoured it with the glare of a basilisk. He
conceived the most devilish plan which ever entered into the mind of man, and he hastened with the strength of madness to
carry it into execution. He began to purchase the best that art produced of every kind. Having bought a picture at a great
price, he transported it to his room, flung himself upon it with the ferocity of a tiger, cut it, tore it, chopped it into
bits, and stamped upon it with a grin of delight.

The vast wealth he had amassed enabled him to gratify this devilish desire. He opened his bags of gold and unlocked his
coffers. No monster of ignorance ever destroyed so many superb productions of art as did this raging avenger. At any auction
where he made his appearance, every one despaired at once of obtaining any work of art. It seemed as if an angry heaven had
sent this fearful scourge into the world expressly to destroy all harmony. Scorn of the world was expressed in his
countenance. His tongue uttered nothing save biting and censorious words. He swooped down like a harpy into the street: and
his acquaintances, catching sight of him in the distance, sought to turn aside and avoid a meeting with him, saying that it
poisoned all the rest of the day.

Fortunately for the world and art, such a life could not last long: his passions were too overpowering for his feeble
strength. Attacks of madness began to recur more frequently, and ended at last in the most frightful illness. A violent
fever, combined with galloping consumption, seized upon him with such violence, that in three days there remained only a
shadow of his former self. To this was added indications of hopeless insanity. Sometimes several men were unable to hold
him. The long-forgotten, living eyes of the portrait began to torment him, and then his madness became dreadful. All the
people who surrounded his bed seemed to him horrible portraits. The portrait doubled and quadrupled itself; all the walls
seemed hung with portraits, which fastened their living eyes upon him; portraits glared at him from the ceiling, from the
floor; the room widened and lengthened endlessly, in order to make room for more of the motionless eyes. The doctor who had
undertaken to attend him, having learned something of his strange history, strove with all his might to fathom the secret
connection between the visions of his fancy and the occurrences of his life, but without the slightest success. The sick man
understood nothing, felt nothing, save his own tortures, and gave utterance only to frightful yells and unintelligible
gibberish. At last his life ended in a final attack of unutterable suffering. Nothing could be found of all his great
wealth; but when they beheld the mutilated fragments of grand works of art, the value of which exceeded a million, they
understood the terrible use which had been made of it.